With Zimbabwe's health sector in ruins, witchdoctors are busy

[emad]

The Independent
By Basildon Peta, Southern Africa Correspondent
03 February 2005


The collapsing health sector in Zimbabwe, once among the best in Africa, is forcing thousands of the sick and elderly to seek out traditional healers or "witchdoctors" for treatment, human rights groups say.

Zimbabwe's National Medical Association says 40 per cent of doctors in Harare, the capital, have left the country, and many medical graduates are heading abroad to better-paid jobs and better conditions. There are said to be fewer than 900 doctors serving a population of 11.5 million.

"Healers", usually with no formal training, have become an option of last resort for many sufferers. The cures are concocted from roots, barks, leaves, animal parts and, occasionally, human organs. Some witchdoctors also claim an ability to diagnose illness through divine powers.

The boom in business for Julius Churi, a traditional healer near Harare, is typical. Mr Churi performs diagnoses using four animal bones, throwing them the air then analysing the pattern in which they fall.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=607214